This week’s poem takes the form of its content: a catalog of fragments pulled from index cards, phone notes, and margins. Week 4 of our Life in View series asks what emerges when we gather what we notice. The answer is on the page: not conclusions, but shapes we couldn’t have planned.
🎧 Hear the poem aloud or read at your own pace—whichever speaks to you today.
The Stack on the Counter
By Scott Tilley
Cardinal again. Same branch. Mom’s voice in my head saying use the good napkins. Why does 3 a.m. feel like a different country? Call Danny. The way she said “I’m fine.” She isn’t. Fog on the retention pond. Gone by 9. Return the book. Return the favor. Return the call. Oak shadow on the driveway, 4 p.m., November. He remembered my coffee order. Four years. What would I do if I weren’t afraid? M. at pool. Looks tired. The dog knows before I do. Gratitude isn’t the same as happiness. Full moon through the kitchen window, standing at the sink. Why do I keep dreaming about the house on Elm Street? She’s been wearing his sweater since March. Bougainvillea. Finally. The kid at Publix called me “sir.” Respect or age? Bring oranges. Something is trying to get my attention.
🪞 Poet’s Note
These are real, mostly. Pulled from index cards, phone notes, voice memos, margins of books. Some are mine. Some are composites, glimpsed patterns from years of this practice.
Alone, each one is almost nothing. Together, they draw a shape I couldn’t have planned: what I’ve been circling, who I’ve been worried about, where my attention goes when I’m not steering it.
The poem is the practice. This is what a year of noticing looks like before you’ve made sense of it. The sense comes later, if it comes at all. The gathering comes first.
✍️ Poetry Matters from Spirituality Today